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It’s 1944, the waning days of World War II, and Veiko (Ville Haapasalo), a
Finnish soldier, has been chained to a boulder and left to die — his
punishment for reluctance in battle. Ivan (Viktor Bychkov), a disgraced Soviet
captain, escapes a bomb attack, and both men end up on an isolated reindeer
farm run by Anni (Anni-Kristiina Juuso), a Lapp widow whose husband went to
war and never came back.

Russian filmmaker Alexander Rogozhkin opens his tale with a long, nearly
wordless first act: Veiko’s efforts to free himself from the boulder, then
Anni’s discovery of the presumed-dead Ivan. Brought together at Anni’s
lakeside compound, the threesome struggle through language barriers, partisan
hostilities and the competition of the two men for for love-starved Anni.

“Cuckoo” is what Ivan calls Veiko, whom he mistakes for a Nazi officer
because of the uniform he was forced to wear. Veiko, in turn, tries to
convince the uncomprehending Ivan that he’s in fact a pacifist, that his true
allegiance is to art and literature.

“I hope people look back in horror at what they did in the war,” Veiko
tells Ivan, quoting one of his literary gods, Dostoyevsky.

There’s a bit of Samuel Beckett austerity, some Ingmar Bergman mysticism,
plus the war-as-ultimate-farce theme of “No Man’s Land.” But Rogozhkin also
brings a sweetness and humanity, and gives his tale a rarefied shimmer by
setting it among the clear waters and vivid skies of Lapland.

Shot by Andrei Zhegalov, the landscape is transformed into a place of
pristine enchantment, a separate world where grown-up fairy tales such as this
might spin out. Beautifully acted, a pleasure to watch, “The Cuckoo” is a rare
gem that ought not to be neglected in the summer movie shuffle.

– This film contains partial nudity, mild sexual references and violence.

– Edward Guthmann

Romantic drama. Starring Jason Isaacs and Sofia Milos. Directed by Dan Ireland.
(Rated PG-13. 105 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

“Passionada” is a romantic drama, a rare kind of film these days, even
though romantic dramas were once a dominant genre in America. It’s the love
story of two adults, around 40, who each enter a relationship with some
baggage. Location and culture add color — the movie takes place in New
Bedford, Mass., within that town’s Portuguese American fishing community.

Sofia Milos plays Celia, a widow and mother, whose husband died in a
fishing accident. British actor Jason Isaacs, usually a dastardly villain
(”The Patriot”), plays Charles, a down-on-his-luck gambler who sees Celia
singing in a club one night and finds a door to his soul opening up. He
pursues her; she resists. He mounts a charm offensive that includes, alas,
lying. He says that he’s rich and, most important, that he loves seafood.

It happens so often in movies and so rarely in life: a relationship starts
on the basis of a big lie. Perhaps it’s just useful in terms of plotting. A
lie in the first act makes for a good third-act crisis. In any case, director
Dan Ireland enables “Passionada” to transcend formula by keeping the emotions
strong and grounding them in a bright, specific world. There are town
festivals, the sea and the sky and seafood everywhere — and to jazz things up,

now and again, there’s the world of the blackjack table and the casino.

Sofia Milos conveys Celia’s pride, her loss, her reluctance and her
blossoming passion. In one scene, we see her memories of herself as a young
woman, frolicking with her husband, and then fade into the present day, as she
looks at photos and remembers. Just by moving in a certain way, she is able to
suggest, in the memory sequence, a woman some 10 or 15 years younger.

That Isaacs is usually a heavy should not come as a surprise to anyone
seeing him here. He may smile a lot in “Passionada,” but there’s yet something
untrustworthy in his look. Still, that works for Charles, who has been a
shifty fellow most of his life and spends most of this movie lying through his
teeth.

– This film contains sexual situations.

– Mick LaSalle

Surf documentary. Starring Ken (Skindog) Collins, Laird Hamilton, Rochelle
Ballard and Gerry Lopez. Written and directed by Dana Brown. (Not rated. 88
minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

A bubble wash for the senses, an adrenaline rush for the mind, “Step Into
Liquid” will have even the most landlocked goofy-footers wondering why they
never learned to surf.

It certainly looks appealing here. Big, curling waves, jolly attractive
folks, and if things get too scary, you just kick it down into slow motion.
Men, women and kids do it, and all over the world, too, from Ireland to
Vietnam. This is a valentine to surfing from Dana Brown, son of the cupid of
the sport, Bruce Brown, whose “Endless Summer” and “Endless Summer II” were
the gold standard for surf flicks.

What can Brown the Younger add? For starters, surf-ology has changed. “Tow-
in” surfing means that riders (and cameramen) can get out to the monster waves
way off shore by hitching a ride on a Jet Ski. It isn’t just bigger waves, it
is better footage of bigger waves and sound that will rattle your esophagus.

Also, it is the 21st century. Women are no longer sitting on the beach,
checking their tan lines. Even in the 1994 “Endless Summer II,” the female
surfers were conspicuously missing. Brown makes an effort to find a group of
top female surfers and takes to Tahiti’s famous (in surf circles, anyhow)
Teahupo’o Beach. These are no kiddy waves. As one surf veteran says in the
movie in so many words, after watching the women, if they want to surf that,
good luck, you ain’t getting me out there.

Brown digs a little deeper into social issues than the “Endless” clips, too.

He follows the Malloy brothers to Ireland, of all places, where the three
brothers, Chris, Keith and Dan, not only introduce some of the local kids to
surfing but also invite Protestant boys and girls to join Catholic kids for
the lessons. It is a good thought. Frankly, it is doubtful that an afternoon
in the water changed the worldview of anyone, but at least he’s not pretending
it is all fun in the sun.

If there is any knock on the production, that is it. To watch these
gorgeous people skim across those magnificent waves, you’d think that surfing
was a kind of cheerful, watery commune where everyone loves the ocean and gets
along. As we know well here, “wave rage” is actually a serious and persistent
problem.

Having said that, anyone who goes to “Liquid” for social commentary is in
the wrong movie. This is not only escapist fare, it is also heart-pounding,
stunning stuff. There is simply no sport that is anything like surfing. As
Randy Rarrick, director of Hawaii’s famous Pipeline Masters surf showdown,
says onscreen: “How many people do you know who go out and gaze at a tennis
court?”

– C.W. Nevius

Extreme sports film. Starring Mike Vogel, Adam Brody and Jason London.
Directed by Casey La Scala. (PG-13. 100 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

A grind is an impressive skateboarding maneuver that involves keeping
balanced while running your axles against a ridged surface.

It’s also something your teeth will be doing during the majority of this
movie, which attempts to combine the extreme sports visuals of a good Warren
Miller ski film with the plot of a bad Tom Green picture and doesn’t come
close to landing on four wheels.

“Grind” is a series of punishments and rewards — for every 15 minutes of
recycled gross-out slapstick, there’s five minutes of skating to enjoy.

Like every other film starring young people since “Stand By Me,” the movie
follows four old friends on a road trip of self-discovery. Except instead of
running across interesting people and places, they encounter as much excrement
and vomit as is allowed in a PG-13 movie (it’s more than you think).

Main skater Eric Rivers (Mike Vogel) and his responsible friend Dustin
(Adam Brody) are benign in their roles as recent high school graduates who use
Dustin’s college fund to follow a cross-country skating tour in hopes of
getting discovered.

Along they way, they encounter a series of D-list actors whose cameos seem
lifted directly from their previous movies.

Bobcat Goldthwait, Randy Quaid and the guy who played Ogre in “Revenge of
the Nerds” don’t have a funny line among them. The most humorous actor in the
film, Joey Kern as Sweet Lou the cradle-robbing ladies’ man, gets laughs only
because he’s performing a note-for-note rip-off of the Matthew McConaughey
character in “Dazed and Confused.”

The worst lines are saved for main comic relief Matt (Vince Vieluf), who is
so incredibly grating you’ll keep hoping someone behind the camera will jump
into the scene and give the character the beating he deserves.

The payoff for all of the above is watching stunt skater Brian Patch, who
is carefully cropped throughout the film so you only see him from the neck
down.

Patch takes over skateboarding duties for Vogel in the movie’s excellent
handful of skating scenes, including the best sequence — where our flatulent
heroes turn their old beater van into a mobile skate park. And the tricked-out
skateboarding finale does deliver, even if the rest of the film doesn’t.

– This film contains sexual situations, crude language and violence.

– Peter Hartlaub